The Effects of Cross-Boundary Rituals on Cultural Innovation

Abstract

To clarify the mechanisms of how modern humans built a continually evolving culture while replacing Neanderthals, this report focuses on cross-boundary rituals that are attended by members of different groups. Field research on present-day modern humans shows that cross-cultural rituals constitute opportunities for distinguished individuals of different groups to communicate together and for young men to enter into marriage with other group members. An agent-based model simulation predicts that all agents accumulate cultural traits if agents with many traits participate in cross-boundary rituals and agents migrate between groups frequently. The significance of these rituals should be re-examined in light of the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans.